


in which Stiles and Derek play Guess Who

by nysscientia



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Board Games, Exactly What It Says on the Tin, M/M, Trapped In A Closet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-16 18:25:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4635624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nysscientia/pseuds/nysscientia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“They definitely could’ve used some silica gel in here, damn,” Stiles murmurs to himself, rifling through paperbacks with curling pages.  The goons upstairs apparently just threw any and all crap they found around their hideout into a few boxes; he’s also found two decks of moldy playing cards, a plastic pear, and a small bag of costume jewelry.  Derek declined when Stiles offered him the tiara, even though this means he is now woefully underdressed.  Stiles has on two strings of faux pearls and feathery clip-on earrings, and he has never looked more dapper.</p><p>Derek, meanwhile, is doing push-ups.  It is almost like he has some frustration to work off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in which Stiles and Derek play Guess Who

**Author's Note:**

> Pretty much nothing happens in this fic, so I have no idea why it's so long. It probably doesn't matter if you've never played Guess Who, but [here's the wiki page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guess_Who%3F) just in case.

“How’s it going, MacGyver?” Derek asks, because he can’t use any references more recent than 1995.

Stiles grits his teeth and rattles his pen in the lock. “Fantastic. How’s that whole sitting and doing nothing thing? Everything you dreamed it would be?”

“And more,” Derek answers dryly. Stiles rolls his eyes even though his back is to Derek, assumes the werewolf powers mean he’ll be able to tell anyway.

The thing is, it’s not even a very sturdy lock. Stiles is willing to bet one solid were-punch would take it out, even without the introduction of claws. But whoever set this trap was smart enough to pull the mountain ash line back so that Derek can’t get within arm’s reach of the door.

They also figured out a way to activate the mountain ash’s properties from a floor up, which is how whoever it is closed the circle around Derek and Stiles without ever being in the same room. Stiles is half ready to deck them and half thirsty for their phone number.

“All right, this ain’t happening. Tell me again why you can’t just bust through the wall?” Stiles says, gesturing to the concrete Derek is leaning against. “I thought that was kind of your thing.”

Derek doesn’t even bother to roll his eyes. He’s staring kind of morosely at the ceiling. He seems unexcited by the prospect of being trapped with Stiles and two stacks of cardboard boxes in what appears to be a very mildewy storage closet.

“Structural integrity,” he answers.

“So just, like,” Stiles waves his arms behind his back demonstratively, “Atlantis that shit.”

“Atlas.”

“That’s what I said.”

Derek slides down the wall and sinks into a sitting position.

“Great, good, that’s the kind of take-charge attitude that really gets people out of weird storage closets, thanks, Derek,” Stiles says. “I’ll just be over here, actually doing something about our situation.”

-

Which is about how well the next forty-five minutes go.

“Stupid fancy promotional pens,” Stiles mutters. “This is what I get for learning to pick pockets.”

Something that sounds suspiciously like a snort erupts from Derek’s side of the room, although when Stiles looks, Derek appears to be admiring the ceiling tile.

“I pick pockets! I’ve picked plenty of pockets. I’ll have you know I’ve picked a peck of pickled pockets,” Stiles snaps.

Derek turns his head enough to make eye contact for a few seconds. Then he goes back to the ceiling.

Stiles makes a face.

“I saw that.”

“My, what big eyes you have.”

Derek takes the pen and crumples it with his freakishly strong wolf hands.

-

“I was trying to get to the ink cartridge,” Stiles explains.

It’s been another half hour since the Pen Incident, and Derek has moved from standing to sitting four times. He’s done the reverse five times. Now he’s switching things up with some pacing.

Stiles decides not to count his steps. “Narrower tool, more likely to get to all the pins in the lock.”

“Scott and Boyd are coming for us,” Derek replies.

“Your cell is working?” Stiles yells, scrambling up and lunging for it.

It’s a terrible plan, and his natural klutziness is the only thing that saves him. He trips over his own feet and collides with the dusty stack of boxes against the wall. Graceless, sure, but better than actually making the grab for Derek’s phone— in his very tight pants pocket— by a factor of at least twelve.

Derek stops pacing long enough to watch a slightly damp cardboard box roll anticlimactically off its stack and about a million dust motes settle to the ground. Stiles blinks up at him from the floor.

“No,” Derek says. “My cell is not working. But I told Scott I’d check in at two.”

Stiles disentangles himself from— nothing, really; the box just landed next to him— and sits up, checks his watch.

“It’s not even quarter ‘til,” he whines.

“Then we still have some time to kill.”

“If you hadn’t _mangled_ my pen—”

“I can still do the same to your face,” Derek interrupts sweetly.

Stiles realizes, then, that he’ll need all his patience for the next hour. Possibly the next two hours. He and Derek are terrible at leaving a coherent trail. So.

He attempts a deep, steadying breath, but the room is still dusty and he spends the next minute hacking up his internal organs instead.

-

The box turns out to be a blessing in inappropriate-for-its-environment packaging.

“They definitely could’ve used some silica gel in here, damn,” Stiles murmurs to himself, rifling through paperbacks with curling pages. The goons upstairs apparently just threw any and all crap they found around their hideout into a few boxes; he’s also found two decks of moldy playing cards, a plastic pear, and a small bag of costume jewelry. Derek declined when Stiles offered him the tiara, even though this means he is now woefully underdressed. Stiles has on two strings of faux pearls and feathery clip-on earrings, and he has never looked more dapper.

Derek, meanwhile, is doing push-ups. It is almost like he has some frustration to work off.

Lost in contemplation of the plastic pear and its potential uses, Stiles nearly loses interest in the box itself before it yields its true prize:

“Guess Who!” Stiles bellows, grabbing the game for dear life and shaking it free of its garage sale-worthy prison.

Across the room, the push-ups cease for a moment, before picking up again at twice the pace.

“Derek!” Stiles shouts again. “Guess Who! Derek, did you hear? Guess Who! Derek!”

Even affording the box and its pieces all due reverence, it still takes Stiles about fifteen seconds to get the whole game set up.

“What is this art? Oh my god,” Stiles murmurs, examining the tiny screenprinted character portraits. “Look at Richard! Richard, who did this to you?”

Derek ceases his calisthenics, and makes a sound like a very serious balloon springing a very tired leak. “Did what?”

“Look at Richard! Richard’s glorious facial hair! It looks like plywood.”

Stiles waves the little plastic Richard piece to make his point. Derek rolls into an upright position and grabs it.

“That’s the normal Richard picture, what are you talking about?”

“It is _not._ This game must be ancient. I bet it’s from before the moon landing.”

“The first edition of Guess Who was released in 1979, that’s impossible,” Derek corrects, because apparently ‘remembering board game trivia’ ranks higher than ‘wearing an actual, real-person shirt’ in his brain.

Stiles takes back the poor, sad Richard impersonator piece and clicks it into place. “I bet this is the edition that was entombed with pharaohs when they were _buried alive._ ”

Derek checks his cell again. “Scott and Boyd will be here in less than an hour,” he says, “so I don’t have time to tell you all the ways that sentence was wrong.”

“We’re buried alive, is what I’m saying. We’re going to die here.”

In what he probably believes is a monumental show of self-restraint, Derek does not roll his eyes. Instead he takes the blue game board and drags it towards himself.

“Shut up and play, Stiles.”

-

“Does your person have a mischievous light in their eyes, or do they look kind of dead inside?”

“Yes or no questions, Stiles.”

“Fine. Mischief, yes or no?”

Stiles broke Derek of his ridiculous notions about ‘subjective’ versus ‘objective’ many questions ago, but this is the first time he doesn’t even sigh about it. Instead he tilts his head, looking thoughtful.

“Yes,” he says, finally.

Stiles flips down three faces and raises his fists triumphantly. “Is your person Joe?”

It’s disgusting how smug Derek looks. The smugness is appalling and offensive and never, ever weirdly hot.

“Anita,” he replies, but he says it mostly with his eyebrows. That’s how smug he is.

Only werewolf reflexes save Stiles’ game board from a quick trip into a concrete wall.

“What are you talking about, Anita?” Stiles asks, incredulous. “No way is it Anita!”

“She’s the only one who looks like she even has the will to live, much less ‘light in her eyes.’”

Then they argue heatedly about whether Joe looks mischievous or filled with passive-aggressive hatred, which is about how the last three games have ended. Stiles turns his game board upside down to reset all the tiles, then rummages in his bag while Derek meticulously flips each portrait up one by one like the grandma he is.

He manages to dig up two protein bars, hands one to Derek while they both select new characters.

“Does your person look like they’ve definitely had work done in the last five years?” Stiles begins.

Derek eyes the protein bar for a second, then unwraps it delicately. “I thought winner got to ask the first question.”

“Yeah, you forfeited the last round because you cheated.”

Derek takes his first bite of bar and makes a tiny noise of surprise. Stiles averts his eyes and dies inside.

“Okay, fine,” Derek says. “Does ‘work’ include perms and dye jobs?”

Stiles shoves as much protein bar into his mouth as he can and answers with his mouth full.

“No. Strictly face-lift,” he says, and it sounds like _mo, swickly base-liff._

“Okay. Then no,” Derek answers, which drives Stiles into a tailspin of wondering who looks like they’ve had a perm but no Botox. Because Stiles is competitive, and not because he needs absolutely anything else to distract himself from the way Derek’s tongue pokes out to dab at the corner of his mouth after a particularly crumbly bite of protein bar.

-

When Scott and Boyd find them, they’ve circled back around to arguing about whether the light in Anita’s eyes is mischief, or homicidal rage at whoever de-aged her from the classy silver fox she used to be. (Derek keeps arguing that it’s not de-aging if she’s older in the newer editions of the game, and Stiles keeps holding up the tile and yelling ‘rage!’ It’s a stalemate.)

“Oh thank god, you haven’t killed each other,” Scott says, and then, “Cool, board games!”

He correctly identifies the weirdness of the portrait art right away, which is incredibly validating. Boyd, meanwhile, remains in the doorway with his arms crossed. Stiles suddenly remembers that Derek has a light sheen of sweat from doing push-ups. And that Stiles is still wearing costume jewelry. And they’re sitting really close to each other. Arguing about a Milton Bradley game.

Boyd’s lips curl into that one incredibly small smile he’s always smiling. “Cute,” he remarks.

Gathering up both game boards, Stiles drop them into the box and begins gathering up cards. And not looking at Boyd, or at Derek.

“Dude, nice earrings,” Scott says. It seems like obliviousness until Stiles glances up and sees his expression, and realizes that it’s actually both a really well-timed diversionary tactic, and kind of a sincere compliment.

For some reason that’s what pushes Stiles overboard. Not the forced closeness with Derek, or the incessant push-ups, or even the debates about a children’s game; it’s the fact that Scott sized up the situation and recognized that Stiles needs a distraction.

He throws his head back and full-on cackles.

The responses he gets are a compare-and-contrast of ways to deal with Stiles’ Stilesness. Derek, expression blank but shoulders screaming confusion— and oh boy does that say something, that Stiles just read more from his torso than his face— makes his way for the door, not hurrying but not exactly _not_ hurrying. Scott grabs the Guess Who box and tucks it under his arm, totally unphased. Boyd’s eyebrows climb about six feet up his face.

“Didn’t kill each other,” Boyd observes. “Seems like Derek still did something.”

“Oh, ha ha. Yes, Derek drove me bonkers,” Stiles snaps.

Scott’s got a not-at-all-subtle grin on his face as he makes for the doorway. “Doesn’t smell like psychological manipulation in here.”

While Stiles is temporarily diverted by wondering whether that’s a real smell for werewolves, Derek and Boyd share some kind of Look and start down the hallway.

“Maybe it would’ve been better if they’d killed each other,” Boyd says conversationally to Scott. Stiles realizes maybe he should follow them out. The superspeed kicks in as the werewolves lope up the stairs, and he has to take them two at a time to catch up. He watches the back of Scott’s head, because that’s better than looking at Derek and potentially reading awkwardness and disdain in his elbows or something.

“Nah, man,” Scott answers. “That’s Derek’s fond frown. They’re cool.”

Stiles pauses at the top of the stairs, wishes he’d eaten more than a protein bar in the last four hours. Notices that Derek’s lightyears ahead of everyone, now.

“That wasn’t Derek’s fond frown,” he argues, mostly to himself. “That’s Derek’s ‘exasperated verging on reluctantly homicidal’ frown.”

“The fact that you don’t know the difference between those two explains so much about this pack,” Lydia says, and Stiles shouts in a very manly and not at all yelpy way.

“Where did you come from?” he asks her, sternly, in a regular pitch and with an even tone.

Lydia rolls her eyes fondly— fondly! Stiles is more than capable of identifying fondness when it’s actually there— and turns back to Scott and Boyd, who are meandering towards the front entrance. Scott is apparently explaining to Boyd why Guess Who is better than Battleship.

Lydia answers Stiles with another question, because of course she does. “Really, Stiles. How did you think they broke the mountain ash circle?”

“I was gonna ask.”

“Sure.”

“I was!” Stiles protests, but his heart’s not in it. He’s trying to figure out where Derek disappeared to. And trying not to obsess over the fact that he apparently felt the need to flee Stiles’ side the instant they had their first breaths of freedom.

Scott materializes at his side. “Dude, don’t worry. Really,” he says quietly. Then, brightly, “Now come on, we need sleep and pizza.”

“Maybe not in that order,” Boyd adds. Then he heads after Lydia, who’s marching across the parking lot with her key fob held high, obviously not waiting up on anyone.

Stiles shakes himself and follows.

He and Scott fit in a round of Guess Who on the way home.

-

It’s on Stiles’ desk when he gets back from lacrosse the next day. Set up so it’ll be the first thing he sees, all posed like a serial killer’s signature: a brand new, but opened, Guess Who box.

The note— a pink Post-It, which Stiles should absolutely not find funny but kind of does— is dripping with Derek’s trademark eloquence and charm.

‘Are you kidding? This art is much weirder.’

‘Much’ is underlined twice. Because Derek has his priorities in order.

Stiles spends so long laughing about the idea of Derek Hale visiting a toy store in the middle of the day to buy a copy of Guess Who that he almost misses the back of the note.

‘Those store-bought bars are just protein powder mixed with corn syrup,’ it says. ‘Next time I’ll cook.’

Derek will cook.

Derek is offering to cook for Stiles.

Stiles launches into the patented Stilinski Victory Dance, realizes that after his storage closet misadventure there’s probably at least one member of the pack surveilling him at that very moment, then decides he doesn’t care. He was locked in a small space with Derek Hale for two hours, and somehow came out with a dinner invitation instead of a lethal wound. He will hip swivel all up in Erica’s face if it comes to that.

-

Derek is a very good cook.

Scott spends the next five weeks yelling, “That’s his fond frown! _Fond frown!_ ” every time he sees Derek and Stiles together.

Stiles doesn’t even argue.

**Author's Note:**

> [Here](https://sciencemagician.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/guesswho2.jpg)'s the edition Stiles and Derek find in the closet. [This](https://sychela.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/dsc_0462edit.jpg) is the version Stiles is more familiar with.


End file.
